Travis Touchdown
Travis Touchdown (トラヴィス・タッチダウン Torabisu Tacchidaun) is a character in both installments of the ''No More Heroes'' video game series. He is introduced as a 27-year-old American assassin and stereotypical otaku – his motel room decorated with professional wrestling and anime collectibles – living in near poverty in the Motel "NO MORE HEROES" of Santa Destroy accompanied by his kitten Jeane (most likely named after his lost love). He appears to have interest in lucha libre and Japanese pro wrestling icons, as well as a moe-driven anime series called Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly. Travis Touchdown will return as the primary protagonist of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, however Goichi Suda has confirmed he will be retired from the series from No More Heroes 3 and potentially onward.Goichi Suda Interview. Ray Barnholt. 1UP.com. September 21, 2009. Travis Touchdown is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, and was based on Jackass' Johnny Knoxville and Ultimate Fighting Championship contender Josh Barnett.Nordic Game Conference: No More Heroes' film influences. Andrew Hayward. 1UP.com. May 20, 2009. Biography Travis Touchdown's past is somewhat explored in the game, where it is at times deliberately (and humorously) muddled and filled with stereotypes. His parents were killed when he was young, apparently by his love (and in actuality, the daughter of Touchdown's father and another woman), Jeane, who had a traumatic and complex past, leaving Touchdown on his own. He had an older twin brother, Henry, he never knew, who apparently grew up in Ireland. Travis has apparently had interest in being a pro wrestler at one point, and practiced the use of the sword via a mixture of his trainer Thunder Ryu's teachings, correspondence courses and videotapes. One night after winning a beam katana in an online auction, Touchdown meets Sylvia Christel in the local Death Match bar, where Christel ushers him into joining the United Assassins Association, so long as he can qualify by killing the eleventh ranked assassin, Helter-Skelter. Having run out of money to buy video games he accepts the job and easily snags UAA rank eleven. Nonplussed that he has now made himself a target for aspiring assassins, Touchdown only agrees to set out and secure himself as number one in the UAA when Christel teases him with the possibility of sex, so long as he can reach the top. He ultimately reaches the top, fighting and killing Jeane. Touchdown returns in'' No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle'', set three years after Touchdown becomes the top assassin in the UAA. Desperate Struggle finds Touchdown withdrawn from the ranks of the UAA, rejoining as the fifty-first in rank after killing Skelter Helter. While initially motivated by Christel with the promise of sex, after finding out that his best friend, Bishop Shidux has been killed by hitmen hired by 1st rank Jasper Batt Jr., he seeks revenge and rises up the ranks to kill Batt. Personality While Travis Touchdown displays crude, punkish and immature behavior, and is especially cruel toward the male assassins he fights, he displays normal and decent behavior whenever he isn't on the job. Travis is relatively calm about killing people, but in the first No More Heroes, killing women made him feel uncomfortable. He is capable of being touched by people's emotional and personal experiences, seeing that he didn't seem entirely settled after killing Dr. Peace, whose daughter was estranged from him. Touchdown is very driven to prove himself, is shown to be highly intelligent and a quick learner, and can be surprisingly witty and even poetic. Touchdown takes his friendships very seriously as well, as evidenced by his quest to avenge to murder of Bishop Shidux, after which he seems to learn something about the repercussions that death has on others aside from the one being killed. Special abilities Touchdown, despite being an otaku, is a very formidable assassin, being skilled in the art of swordplay and physical combat. After becoming acquainted with Randall Lovikov, the town drunk, Touchdown is able to rely on Lovikov to teach him special techniques that compliment his fighting and questing skills. Touchdown is able to snap into a "Dark Side" mode by lining up three objects in a slot machine mini-game after executing a Death Blow. Each trance of Dark Side Mode entails Touchdown with superhuman strength, speed, invincibility and other powers. His preferred weapon is the beam katana, which he relies on scientist Dr. Naomi to design for him, and to optimize the models he already owns. Throughout No More Heroes, Touchdown acquires the Blood Berry, followed by the durable Tsubaki, the heavily upgraded and empowered Tsubaki Mk-II which is comprised of five rotating beams, and requires more finesse to wield, and finally the Tsubaki Mk-III, a very showy beam katana designed from the beam Samurai sword of his mentor, Thunder Ryu. In Desperate Struggle, Touchdown also gains the beam katanas Peony, a heavy, but powerful and potentially far reaching blade, and the dual katanas Rose Nasty, which gives Travis a powerful balanced edge to accomplish his ends. His former experience of pro wrestling training through the use of correspondence tapes and some experience in Calgary allows him to use a great variety of wrestling moves to take down foes, and because of the dangerous nature of his career, Travis has taken creative incentive to allow his Beam Katana to haphazardly finish off his intended targets. Touchdown also shows to have some resistance to firearms, one instance being when Helter-Skelter riddled him with bullets and rockets, which culminated with absolutely no effect. In the lowest difficulty of No More Heroes, Touchdown is able to automatically block ranged bullets as long as the player does not move the Control Stick. Furthermore, in all subsequent difficulties, all it takes for Touchdown to block oncoming bullets is to guard using the Z Button. Trading cards Travis Touchdown appears on nine trading cards in the Design Materials set of No More Heroes. These are No. 98, No. 99, No. 100, No. 127, No. 128, No. 129, No. 130, No. 134 and No. 150. Trivia * Travis Touchdown's red jacket, unique swordplay, dark hair, physical abilities and amoral persona as well as his love of women are comparable to Samurai Champloo's Mugen. Curiously, No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture was involved in the video game adaptation Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked. * While concept art on the trading card "Travis Touchdown" Front depicts Touchdown holding a gun which bares a strong resemblance to the Star Wars DL-44 blaster pistol, in No More Heroes he never makes use of any firearms. References Category:Assassins Category:Characters Category:Males Category:No More Heroes Category:No More Heroes characters Category:No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle Category:No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle characters Category:Protagonists Category:United Assassins Association Category:Wrestlers